occasional reflections on culture & politics
https://youtu.be/092P6yNrDSE (This is a bit different in style – it is an unscripted video transcript, so it reflects oral more than written speech.) Can we have hope? I was asked a question recently about what gives me hope. I don't know whether I have the right answer for this. I've tried to write about hope… Continue reading #240: Hope, Duty & the Future
We are living in a world with many dangers, threats and uncertainties. And yet, panic, fear or depression would be the wrong answer. The only thing that really helps anyone is cautious optimism. You may ask, how can you be optimistic? It is a legitimate question. On the surface, I seem to be worried about… Continue reading #202: Fear Not: Why We Need to be Optimistic About the Future
As I am sitting in my warm house, I am watching a squirrel eat some of the food I originally put out for the birds. There is not just one squirrel, there are five. Every attempt at “squirrel-proofing” the feeder has failed. They are smart animals. I had to hang up a separate feeder somewhere… Continue reading #200: The Nature Around Us
I. When we speak (or write), does our positionality in this world matter? I recently stumbled upon a video in which someone expressed their ire against people starting a variation of a sentence like “I am speaking as an x person.” The position here – if I may simplify it as follows – is instructive:… Continue reading #199: Why Positionality Matters
In these depressing times, we seem to always be on the brink of the end of the world, the end of democracy, the end of a livable climate, the end of free speech, sanity, respect, fairness, justice, nuance, context, humanity, whatever – you name it. There is either too much or too little of wokeness… Continue reading #197: We Have Good Reasons for Hope
Queen Elizabeth II died two days ago, and her loss was felt around the world. She has always been committed to her duty to represent the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, transcending that which remained of the Empire into a time of decolonization, new partnerships, a more European Britain, and eventually, sadly, Brexit. She lived… Continue reading #193: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bene: We Owe Respect to the Dead
Aren’t we focused a bit too much on identity lately, or rather, on a very narrow definition of it? What does identity even mean? Who we are always depends on several factors, only part of which is controllable by ourselves. We may want to be seen a certain way, but we cannot change how others… Continue reading #182: Reflections on Identity, Purpose, and the Active Life
I have never been a cultural pessimist, nor have I ever been a Luddite. As soon as I was able to, I learned to use a computer in the pre-internet age (I still remember 5 ¼ inch disks and even data tapes), and as soon as the internet became available for private citizens, not just… Continue reading #181: Are We too Stupid for the Internet?
The world can be a depressing place. Anyone who ever thought about just staying in bed a little longer in the morning, about dulling their senses before going to bed, just to avoid hearing and thinking about what is going on in the world will probably understand. It is safe to assume that once we… Continue reading #171: Writing as Witnessing
You can hardly turn on the news today without being faced with manifestations of every possible disaster known to humankind: war, genocide, disease, famine, climate change, etc. Death and its precursors are all around us. How can you stay sane in such a world? How can we ever tolerate the presence of so much death… Continue reading #164: The Answer to Death is Life
I am currently – among other things – working on editing my fifth poetry volume. It will largely consist of my absolutely insane mega-poem “Pastiche”, a 20000-long act of utter lunacy. As I am going over its meandering bouts of madness, I come across parts written in English, French, Latin, Greek, German, etc. – some… Continue reading #162: Seize the Day
A monster is something at which you point because it stands out. It is different, deviant, grotesque; you cannot stop being fascinated by it. It is negatively attractive, holds our attention, draws us in, mesmerizes, makes us trying to understand it – a task at which we typically fail. When speaking about human beings as… Continue reading #153: The Monstrosity of Vladimir Putin: We Have Learned Nothing From History
In a world dominated by climate change and a still deadly global pandemic, we sometimes seem puzzled, annoyed, frustrated, depressed, angry and utterly confused. What is happening? Why is it happening? How could this possibly be what is going on? Welcome to the world in denial. We have believed that we can create a world… Continue reading #139: Nature Demands Humility: Lessons from Jurassic Park World
We all die. It will probably happen sooner than we would have hoped. As Aristotle has made clear, every story has a definitive beginning (before which there was nothing relevant to the story), a middle, and an end, a conclusion, a destination, a telos which concludes this one specific story. Now, I am not sure… Continue reading #137: Live Every Day in Love
Some years ago, I talked with a person about conspiracy theories surrounding the terror attacks of 9/11/2001, during which Al-Quaida terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, with a fourth probably headed for the White House downed by passengers. The person was completely… Continue reading #135: Conspiracy Belief, Science, Ego and Humility
Whoopi Goldberg said something incredibly and shockingly ignorant about the Holocaust. She revealed, in fact, how a very peculiar and narrow understanding of race in America prevents a more thorough and global discussion of difference, discrimination, ethnicity, racism and genocide in the world. It is a wide-spread problem, and it was unfortunate to see it… Continue reading #134: If People Apologize for Their Mistake, They Should Not Be Cancelled
The current principle of attempts to change the world seems to be the following: “If I only scream loudly enough, I will be heard.” That is correct. But you will not be listened to. Hearing the noise and listening to the message are two different things. We know by now – rather definitively – that… Continue reading #133: Am I Really Not Paying Attention If I Am Not Outraged?
I am old. If you don’t believe me, I am going to prove it to you with this text. Correction: I am not that old, mid-40s, but I am old enough to not quite fit in with this world anymore. I am no stranger to computers. While in East Germany, we could not easily get… Continue reading #132: My Tablet Told Me to Try a Bedtime Alarm to Get More Sleep
The end of days is not coming, no matter what we hear - and we seem to be hearing a lot. With an ongoing pandemic, climate change, civil unrest, heated political rhetoric, amassing armies, continuing smaller wars, all of our news feeds seem to be screaming that the world is going to if not end,… Continue reading #131: Please Stop this Fascination with End-Times Rhetoric
Most people who live with pets are able to somehow communicate with them. It’s not difficult. They teach you: all you need to do is to recognize that there is a little person in your animal just as much as there is in you. That little person speaks a different language than you, but you… Continue reading #129: Pets Teach Empathy and How to Live
Erratic Attempts 